Only a terminal sentimentalist will weep for the BBC following the decision by the England and Wales Cricket Board to give Auntie the boot and sell off their television rights to Channel 4 and Sky Sports in a deal worth £103 million over the next four years.

Cricket clearly owes a debt to the BBC for helping to popularise the game over the past half-century but recently the channel had come to reinforce the game's staid and stuffy image. Its thorough and paternalistic coverage, so often brilliant and memorable - no more so than when England regained the Ashes at The Oval in 1953, when TV sets resembled small, snow-storm paperweights - had made little progress in the past 15 or 20 years, despite the dazzling innovations of Australia's Channel 9 and Rupert Murdoch's Sky.

There has also been a whiff of complacency about the BBC in recent years. It never really took Channel 4 seriously, it seems. And it must now be regretting its considerable role in allowing Sky into football coverage while it squeezed ITV out of the market.

Neither would it do the BBC any good to mutter about chequebook journalism. It is understood that Channel 4 outbid the BBC by little more than £4 million - £1 million a year - but excited Lord's with its bright new ideas for cricket coverage.

The only disappointment for the game is that it sold itself short. It wanted more, much more. But it could hardly have sold itself at all but for Wednesday's radical decision to play seven home Tests and 10 one-day internationals from 2000.

Last night the ECB was congratulating itself on getting a good deal. But it was negotiating at the worst possible time, with the county game on its knees, sponsors in retreat and the game in general swamped by football.

The ECB chairman, Lord MacLaurin, has some cause to feel happy about the past few days. "This is a good deal for cricket," he said. "What it means for everyone will become clearer when we hold fresh meetings with the counties in December."

From next year Channel 4 will cover all home Test matches, except one, and feature the NatWest Trophy. It is likely to employ greater analysis and more imaginative camera angles.

The only difficulty will come on Saturday afternoons when Channel 4, which will invest £13 million to promote the game, is committed to horse-racing; then cricket will be shown on Channel Four B, available free but only if the viewer can access cable or digital TV.

Sky Sports will cover one home Test each season as well as all domestic one-day internationals and the new two-division 45-overs National League.